


Hold Me When The Sky Falls Down

by AliceinSpace



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Finally, Gen, John gets to say goodbye, Rated For Violence, Rooftop scene, but Harold already knows, confession of love, finale is so good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceinSpace/pseuds/AliceinSpace
Summary: On the rooftop, the Machine stays with John as long as she can.  As he lays dying, she changes her voice to the one John wants to hear more than anything.“The moment that often mattered the most, the moment when you truly found out who they were... was often their last one.”





	Hold Me When The Sky Falls Down

He sees Harold stumbling to the door and he’s distracted.  He gazes after the best thing that's happened to him, his gun unsteady in shaking hands. John has never been afraid of death, he is afraid of leaving the man on the rooftop.  This will save his life, the last and best gift John can give before he goes, and that is enough.

John smiles.

He says goodbye.

The first bullet to slip past him tears a chasm in his right shoulder.  Its fire rips through his body, he can feel it in his fingertips.  When he goes down beside the transmitting briefcase, a second bullet lodges in his gut, doubling him over on the ground.

In his right ear, John hears the voice that has been his everything.  “John?”

He panics.

He struggles to breathe properly around the wound in his belly and the fear in his pounding heart and gasps, “Harold.  You came back.  You can’t… You have to… go now…  I can’t do this if I don’t know that you’re safe… I…”

“It’s only me, John.”  Root’s voice returns to him.  “I’m sorry for upsetting you, I just thought… well…”

He can hear Root’s smile in the voice.  He can almost see her and it reminds him that she is gone and soon, in mere moments, this last remaining part of her will be gone as well.

“This voice comforted Harold.”  Root’s voice disappears and is replaced seamlessly by Harold’s.  “I thought this one would do the same for you.”

John huffs a laugh as he shoots two advancing armed men in the chest.  He hasn’t done that in years.  The shock of it gives him pause.

“If you’d rather hear Root, I can-”

“No,” stutters John.  “Stay with me… please…”

“Always,” replies Harold’s voice in his ear.

 

John cannot hear the small sound the briefcase emits when the transmission is finished, so Harold’s voice returns to John as another bullet hits him.

Gasping, John breathes heavily through his mouth.  His vision is blurring with tears and obstructing his aim. “Harold, I…” he starts to say.

“It’s me, John, remember?”  The voice in his ear becomes Root’s for the word _me_.

But God, it sounds like Harold.  It sounds the way his voice always does when he’s lost contact with John and is worried nearly out of his mind.  That’s all this is now: Harold has been worried and damn it all John is coming home if it kills him.

“Harold is safe.”

And that is really all that matters now.  All that has ever mattered from the very beginning.

There is silent between them – the dying man with his breaking heart and the dying machine with her father’s voice – a silence punctured hard by bullets and blood and blinking in blinding sunlight.  He’s gasping on his own blood now, it chokes him from the inside out, he spits violently as more armed men appear on the rooftop.

“Please…”  He chokes on the words too, not only on the blood, and swallows both.  He slumps against the satellite dish, his gun wavering.  The sun is so bright above him, the world is turning too fast, he’s going to-

“What is it, John?” asks Harold’s voice.

“Please… would you tell him…”  He shakes his head.  He takes down another attacker but receives an equally mortal wound for his trouble.  “Tell him that I…”

Harold’s voice cuts in easily: “He knows, John.”

 

That voice he _knows_ isn’t really Harold falters, and then becomes so like Harold that John doesn’t know anything anymore: “I know,” he whispers to him.

With a smile, John lets his head fall back and his eyes close against the pain and the light.

He is gone before the missile crashes into the roof.

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by "Right Here" by Ashes Remain


End file.
